Here's an idea for fixing schools: Listen to the students

Noah K. Murray/The Star LedgerStudents from Newark high schools gathered at City Hall to protest Gov. Chris Christie's cuts in state school aid.Four years ago, midday traffic in downtown Newark was blocked off while hundreds of students from the city’s school marched in a public school pride parade — on a school day.

I remember thinking that given the dropout rates, the slow overall improvement in standardized test scores and the low graduation rates, wouldn’t it be better to keep the kids in school and boost their pride by boosting their academic performance?

Last month, thousands of students left school and marched down Broad Street in a protest they organized to voice concern about state school aid cuts and their fears about what would happen in their schools.

On that day they were where they needed to be.

In all the debate about education reform, we don’t listen much to the students.

When a Department of Education official came to Central High School last month to talk about the federal grants available for reforming failing high schools, he brought a slide show with quotes gathered from other cities. The one I remember most was from a student in Colorado who said that the crux of the current education crisis is not teachers losing jobs and pensions, but kids who are not graduating or are not able to get into college or succeed in life.

The day before the Central High session, the feds sat with a group of Newark students. Members of the Youth Media Symposium of the Abbott Leadership Institute in Newark created their own list of things for the grownups to do.

The YMS group noted that the students are never involved in planning what goes on in school.

Classrooms are boring and the students know they don’t have to be. The gangs and the folks pushing overpriced sneakers and jeans know how to get our kids’ attention and influence their thoughts in ways the schools can’t seem to manage en masse.

Everyone trying to sell kids something knows how to make use of computers, interactive gadgetry and other technology to push their product — everyone except those trying to sell the kids on education. When technology is introduced, the YMS students said, the kids have to show the teachers how to use it.

The kids say they are being taught for the tests, not taught to learn. They don’t want a dumbed-down curriculum, they want more electives and a wider variety of classes and learning opportunities.

They think their teaches don’t care. “Place more emphasis on hiring and keeping teachers that show commitment, (who) care, and are highly qualified to teach their subject area,” the students said. They also want stronger attendance policies for teachers because too many classes are being taught by too many substitutes.

They want schools reorganized so that kids and parents work with teachers to decide what happens. Parents who ask questions are not welcome in schools, the YMS students said.

We need to listen to the kids, but right now the loudest clamor is coming from those who think that cutting state subsidies to urban schools is the way to make New Jersey’s economy better.

What we need is for the money allocated for schools to be spent well, so the educational job gets done in the cities. That is as critically important to New Jersey as a whole as it is to the cities. Kids who drop out or fail to earn a diploma earn millions less and pay less taxes over their lifetimes.

That’s what I was thinking when I saw all those Newark kids marching down Broad Street last month. And I was thinking of something the YMS students wrote: “As long as students are not expected to succeed and are not prepared to succeed, they will drop out. There is no reason to drop in.”

What would the economy be if over the years the majority of the kids in Newark and their counterparts in the other cities had been educated to achieve their maximum learning potential, their maximum earning power and tax-paying power? What if they were all educated to care for themselves and their community, fully prepared to help us figure our way out of our problems?